four years down four more to go and seven american citizens charged with espionage one accused whistleblower after another has been locked up for spilling national secrets how the case of james his soul burger and his latest leave the room. and speaking of whistleblowers bradley manning remains locked up for allegedly causing the biggest down to drop in u.s. history. leaks that gave media outlets like the new york times a treasure trove of stories and yet the great lady isn't really covering manning's trial coming up an apology from the new york times public editor. and do as i say not as i do the u.s. reserves the right to spy on its citizens but that doesn't mean the u.n. can do the same members of congress blocking a u.n. attempt at world why he's dropping what it means for your privacy in just

a bit. it's thursday december sixteenth pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r t. well starting off this hour another name has been added to the list of people charged under the espionage act a former contractor linguist is being charged with stealing classified information from a navy base in bahrain james hits a burger has been in custody since october he is now asking a federal court to release him while he awaits his trial the government claims had sold berger was a fugitive in europe for four months after he was dismissed from his post that offense is denying this saying the former linguist cooperated with law enforcement well it's all berger is the seventh person to be charged under the espionage act under the obama administration here's the others thomas drake he was

a senior and as a executive. libel wittes was an f.b.i. translator charged with leaking classified information to a blogger stephen cam previously a u.s. state department contractor accused of leaking classified information to fox news bradley manning of course accused of the biggest classified document leak in u.s. history jeffrey sterling was a cia agent john kiriakou was a director of counterterrorism operations in pakistan and the newest name to be added to that list of course james hits all berger and what they all share in common is that they have all been charged with violating the espionage act so what is the latest behind this case for more i was joined earlier by political politico white house reporter josh gerstein. this fellow james hansen who was a contract linguist at a navy base in bahrain apparently got into some trouble there some colleagues noticed that he put a couple classified documents into

a book that he had taken into his private quarters there was an investigation and he basically got kicked out they sort of ended his work there and told him that he was no longer needed to go back to the u.s. and it looks like he's probably going to get fired on the way back to the u.s. he stopped in germany and he decided not to go all the way back and ultimately get out for three or four months in europe he says he was just traveling around the government that he was a fugitive from justice all right so he allegedly sent these documents to the hoover institute at stanford university most of the information found pertains to the revolution in iran back in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine there's also documents and photos. related to the iraq war the u.s. judge in this case has said that he doesn't he did not disarm and i'd classify disseminate excuse me classified information so if it's really leaking and a violation of the espionage act can it really be considered as such well it's just

strange case because it doesn't look like it was asked to and it doesn't appear that he was trying to relay this to any foreign government it is perhaps close to a leaking case because he was putting some of these documents at an archive at stanford where any member of the public to get them you could view that is similar to kind of the wiki leaks situation where the documents were basically being put in an online library this is more of physical library it does seem like an odd case to charge someone with a crime over there are classified information violations every day you know with more than a million people having these clearances it seems a little odd that these kinds of documents a handful of them would lead to two felony charges so we're not talking about documents that could possibly put u.s. national security at risk. well i mean technically they should be classified if they don't have some impact on national security but the highest classification level here was secret they seem to be sort of situation reports that might be of

use to someone that day or the next day but probably not of a great use after some time goes by they're just not the kind of highly sensitive documents that would normally trigger a criminal prosecution be it for weakening or for espionage or what have you now he is being charged with violating the espionage act now the seventh person under the obama administration what kind of sentence if you're looking at for this well according to law books he could get up to twenty years normally you get much shorter sentence depending on a lot of other factors like whether you have any prior criminal history i would be really surprised if a case like this when to trial you know we have had similar cases people including the director of the cia has been charged in the past with mishandling classified information in a national security adviser so the cases are brought sometimes but here we're not talking about a leader of the intelligence community we're talking about exxon tracking linguist which makes this case a little unusual i'd be surprised if he got significant jail time. well i know in

addition to this case i have been following another case closely where the suspect is accused of violating the espionage act and that of course is the case and bradley manning you've written about how difficult it has been to report on a case talk about some of these hurdles that you face trying to cover the case. well the main problem for reporters with covering the bradley manning case is that the documents the basic legal documents the pleadings that side to side the prosecution and defense it's filings with the court are not public there's no file room you can go to to look at them even the judge's orders are not public unless you choose to read them from the bench and then you better be able to write pretty fast because there's no public transcript of the proceedings lisi people scrambling to write things down it's just a very strange way of proceeding for those of us used to covering civilian courts where unless there's some specific reason you can get pretty much any document it's filed with or so would you say i mean in your experience reporting in covering

these cases the way that. it's a unique case trying to cover the bradley manning case. you know because this is actually the standard way that military courts martial are held there usually is no access to documents and that may be something that needs to change especially in this modern era a kind of date back to the day when court martials were done on the battlefield with a card table and us a lieutenant or somebody carrying out the court martial they're now done by the military judges you know a courtroom with high tech video cameras and all kinds of things so it seems like the procedure of getting access to the documents needs to catch up with the times a little bit. mantra saying as we had mentioned this gentleman is the seventh of seven suspect to be charged under the ask me on espionage act and this is just within the obama administration josh could we is this a trend that we're seeing. it certainly looks that way i mean as you say that seven

cases here in the obama administration depending on how you count them two three or four during all presidential administrations before at least in terms of espionage act case and related to leaks and so it does seem to be a trend to really either have a zero tolerance in forstmann policy or at least some kind of much stricter more rigorously enforced in the air in the question's going to be is it fair to charge some people with felonies for the kinds of violations that other people in the past just got a slap in the wrist for or maybe just lost their clearance or their job yet you know whether or not it's a trend we are seeing that the seventh person now and this is kind of raising suspicion that. whistleblowers are accused whistleblowers are are being singled out are there is a there's a crackdown on those that try to blow the whistle. yeah i mean several of these people could be characterized as whistleblowers i'm not sure this latest case the seventh case is the best example of that because he was sending these documents

back to stanford where they were apparently sitting on a dusty shelf somewhere if you really wanted to bring them to public attention immediately you probably could have found another route but you know it is something that i think academics are going to be concerned about and another interesting aspect of this case is stanford apparently still has these documents they're retaining them and he's actually charged with retaining classified information which raises the question of whether stanford has some special privilege to hold on to classified information that the government wants back that mr hatfill berger doesn't have an interesting case raises a lot of questions and thank you for staying on top of it and telling us what you know that was a politico white house reporter josh marsian laird r t we have been following the case of bradley manning very closely and it's been called one of the most significant cases in u.s. military history but it's gone and little to no coverage on the mainstream news and at a rare news conference earlier this week in which manning's attorney david combs made

his first public appearance speakers brought this to to the attention. i also want to say the journalists who've been covering the bradley manning and. one man you don't hear on that list the new york times. what you see is journalists covering a trial that is very difficult to cover and you don't see that major media coverage . well that was wiki leaks u.s. attorney michael ratner calling out the new york times for neglecting to cover the manning case of the times that you can recall was one of the first newspapers to partner up with wiki leaks the initial release of cable gate using information in the document leak as the basis for many of its reports no doubt benefiting from the massive amounts of information well it's no secret that those following the case closely have been unhappy with the paper's silence and activists have made their

feelings known from day one here's an example. that is the wiki leaks truck recently it decided to make a stop in front of the gray lady's office and it commemorated the visit by posting a picture in a tweet saying quote i'm going to troll your ass harder than ever until you sen analysts to cover bradley manning's trial while some within the media community seem to agree with that sentiment in the small group of reporters that did follow the case closely have commented on the lack of coverage as well here's the new republic on the absence of the new york times at fort meade quote. i truly do not understand your silence it's bad enough that private manning has been badly treated for revealing truth to power it's unconscionable and sad at the time sits quietly by saying nothing even worse simply running a.p. wire copy to let the story itself. well the publication is now apologizing for the lack of coverage somewhat the paper's public editor margaret sullivan wrote

a response saying quote in failing to send its own reporter to cover the fascinating and important pretrial testimony of bradley manning the new york times missed the boat and over the past several days a compelling testimony or as compelling testimony over the harsh treatment of this twenty four year old army private turned whistleblower illegal informant depending on your point of view flooded the media zone the times was notably absent well it will be interesting to see if these words will be followed by any action and if we do in fact see reporters from the times to make the trip to ford need. well it seems that more the more that the u.s. wants to know the more it turns to drones from the military to the cia and now local law enforcement the constant desire for more information has pushed unmanned aviation technology in ways we never imagined possible we here at r.t. have been covering drones for as long as the station has been around who is benefiting who is dying as

a result of them and what it means for your privacy well now there is a big difference we want to make clear between drones fighting wars abroad in those at home namely the size of them and how long they can stay in flight take a look at this this little guy is one of two robots revealed by the massachusetts company sayf i work and what it does what makes this different is a single battery will keep the drone up for fifteen minutes but this could be extended indefinitely by hot swapping batteries at the control station so the days of a short drone flight are or soon could be over and indefinite drones can only mean one more thing more surveillance. and that's not all we're learning about. yesterday the electronic frontier foundation released thousands of pages. a new drone license records and a map to track to track these aircraft and they show extensive military flights in

u.s. airspace they also show an alarming lack of transparency from local law enforcement agencies quote more disturbing than these proposed uses the fact that some law enforcement agencies like the orange county florida sheriff's department and mesa county colorado sheriff have chosen arbitrarily to withhold some or in orange county's case almost all information about their drone flights including what type of drone they're flying where they're flying it and what they want to use it for claiming that releasing this information would pose a threat to police work well this risk seems extremely farfetched given that other agencies mentioned above and in prior posts have been forthcoming that even the u.s. air force feels comfortable releasing information about where it's flying drones around the country all this goes to show that it might not be a question of if but when domestic droll drones patrolling our skies will be the

norm. or we are going to take a quick break but coming up just because big brother spies on american citizens doesn't mean the u.n. can u.s. representative say the internet needs to be to remain free from government control and sound hypocritical to you that story still ahead.

thanks x. . six. and now to a story where always on top of and that is the role revolving door between legislators and lobbyist probably because the hits just keep on coming we've been collecting files on the people who make a living hopping back and forth between the public and private sector now these

people earn connections and power in the public sector which they can leverage into higher salaries in the private sector of course it's a win win for them to go back and forth but who loses out all the regular people whose interests are put on the back burner in favor of big business well who's the latest deserving of a mention a woman by the name of elizabeth fowler now lives has been going back and forth between the public and private sector her entire career specializing in the health care industry she hit the big time as a top health care aide to senator max baucus of montana now the chair of the senate finance committee that she went off to well point the largest health insurance provider in the country but she made it back to the public sector just in time to draft the affordable care act while obamacare and health care reform in general was lauded as a progressive step it was also a boon for insurance companies that's because by law everyone needs to buy

insurance through private health care providers like well point listen to this bill moyers report from two thousand and nine when he explains why health care reform might be tainted by private interests. health insurance industry. has six lobbyist for every member of congress and more than five hundred of them are former congressional staff members well after fowler wrote the law president obama called upon her to oversee its implementation as you can see her job as the special assistant to the president was a pay drop from her job at the senate so proud so it was time for a salary increase which she most assuredly is getting at her new gig at johnson and johnson feller already received six hundred and thirty dollars to speak to johnson and johnson executives back in two thousand and two that's according to legit store so you can add liz fowler to the revolving door list and if you want to thank her for the health care bill make sure to address that letter to johnson and johnson's

office here in d.c. . the internet surveillance will have no borders if the united nations gets its way members of the united nations international telecommunications union have agreed to work toward putting in place standards for the internet that would allow ease dropping worldwide the u.n. says allowing spying on a global scale what allow authorities to the tech when copyrighted material is transferred all this is now raising concerns in the u.s. house of representatives members say they don't feel right about having the u.n. or allowing them giving them the power to eavesdrop but this is the same congress remember that has made cyber security a top priority attempting to pass legislation like sopa pipa and most recently fice which allows the government to wiretap americans overseas to talk about the u.s. proposal and more i was joined by r t correspondent honest aasia churkin a. definitely sounds like a very scary and quite convoluted story as so of the body we're talking about here

is the international telecommunications union the i.t. you this is a specialized agency within the united nations that has been around for decades it comprises all of the members of the u.n. one hundred ninety three members and is based in geneva and it specializes in focuses on communications technology and what's been going on is they've been kind of winning this option and debating the possibility of implementing a pretty tough standard for the internet that's causing a lot of hype and debate and controversy and even though this says their goal is to try to track down copyrighted material and data that's being passed around the internet and transferred around by users and is not in any way shape or form going to affect free speech the substance of what they're considering and they have been considering certainly speaks about something completely different what they're talking about implementing is deep packet inspection something that could allow governments to really dig much deeper into the data flying around on the web and

you know just to kind of explain it in simple terms of traditionally the kind of material that is being transferred online what we can trace is a name and an ip address very generic info if this deep packet inspection is applied the people applying it on the government supplying it will be able to see the substance of the material and the packets being passed around and certainly because we're talking about content here specific private content that might be shared by users this is certainly causing a lot of debate online some of that debate the debate critics say that this can lead to internet censorship how so. well you know critics are pretty outraged by this whole idea they're saying that this is for on big brother if this deep packet inspection is applied that we're not talking about you know national levels here and there we're talking about a global scale if all of these countries word of course sign up for something like this and you know basically people are comparing this to our chat with

a friend on line you know if they can see who you're talking to they can't necessarily see exactly what you're saying with this new standard they would be able to track down exactly what is being said to you know to compare this to maybe hiring the detective one would be able to see where person goes and who they meet with but with this new standard this is basically allowing a detective to wiretap your phone your text messages and basically get all of the possible information in terms of what you're doing so major concerns about exactly what this kind of thing can lead to but it's important that we have to see that some people are saying look this is not yet been really implemented this is something that's being considered we have some member states that are part of the who are against this idea we have big businesses saying they wouldn't support this and it's a bore to keep in mind that this is you one body that doesn't have any mandatory powers it can basically not force any kind of document they sign on to the other countries so if this were to become an international kind of document that they

adopt that for those countries that have had major control over internet this would open a lot more doors but for those who still believe in freedom online certainly they don't have to sign up to this and that leaves a little more room for people who are worried that this is a global takeover of the internet well i guess congress here is worried about that they are opposing it and they passed a resolution urging the u.s. not to give the u.n. the power to control the internet can you tell us more about this well us certainly liz we've had in september we've seen the senate. a resolution begging really for the u.s. government to not let the this you one body control the internet and try to bring into force any sort of documents like this and yesterday we saw the u.s. house of representatives vote unanimously for a resolution asking the u.s. government to not let the u.n. have control over the internet three hundred ninety seven votes against zero but

you know some people are saying that while congress is saying oh we just want to make sure the internet is free their excuse is you know the internet has to be free from government control critics are saying let's look at the bigger picture it's quite likely that congress is more interested in not letting any sort of international body get involved in something that it could have power by itself at home and the i to you has been saying to the u.s. relax this is really something that we're just a u.n. body we can't really have power over it what goes in the in the united states but congress has definitely been taking these precautionary measures and making sure that the u.s. president really hears that this is something that they don't want by any means while honest. congress has made it here in the u.s. has made cyber security a top priority attempting to pass through legislation to regulate the internet. so was this kind of a do as i say not as i do. well isn't that certainly the the opinion that we get when people hear that congress is all of a sudden you know blocking this u.n.

idea certainly there can be concerns with exactly what the i to you is considering it certainly is you know valid reasoning and valid questions that people are asking about these deep pocket inspections but when it comes to congress when only last year we've seen the whole ordeal with sopa and pipa and you know just really trying to track material online and being see a match with this big public outrage the question is is this another example of a double standard when congress wants to consider something within the u.s. it goes ahead and tries to do whatever it wants and you know monitor everybody and their mother but when it comes to you when a united nations body and we have to remember this particular idea was passed around and initiated by china so all my god china again trying to get involved certainly something that people are saying basically congress by voting against this. precaution is just you know trying to score some political points trying to kind of keep the power on its territory you know but of course when we see attempts

in the u.s. to block anonymous comments online and of course you don't wiretapping and monitoring things online warrantless li it's a whole different story nobody's screaming and voting you know unanimously against that regulating the internet within u.s. borders is kind of what the deal is but the u.n. stepping in is taking it too far so it certainly is certainly something that looks like the way the congress is reacting to this if it's a matter of internet freedom that it can control that it's a whole different story when it comes to the u.n. body the u.s. is saying no thanks we'll deal with our things by ourselves interesting on a stasi i thank you that was our correspondent on a stasi at church. well then surveillance is getting outta hand these days well brace yourself for this for eyes and has filed a patent for a cable box equipped with a microphone and sensors to record what you're doing that's right the television would be watching you watching it the idea would be that arise and could target

advertisements to what you're doing while you're watching t.v. so if you're watching with your pet it can show you commercials for pet products and if you're watching with your spouse it him or if you're arguing with your spouse it can lead you to the ideal marriage counselor and that's not all this technology would be able to communicate with your phone to see what you've been browsing on your mobile device now this obviously doesn't sit well with privacy advocates here is where i was in the response. in a statement brazen tells n.b.c. for the company has a well established track record of respecting its customers privacy and protecting their personal information adding while we do not comment on pending patent applications such futuristic patent filings by innovators are routine so at this point it's just an idea but is this a sign that tracking consumers and the ability to spy is getting outta hand seems like a scary sign of what's to come. well now on to

a bizarre case you would think that if anyone could avoid police capture through digital information it would be a web security guru but the tale of john mcafee who built the anti computer virus company that shares his name shows just how much information can be gleaned from something as simple as an i phone photo the publicity loving mcafee has been on the lam for a month he's been hiding from bullies police who named him a person of interest in the murder of his neighbor while dodging police mcafee has been welcoming media attention he blogs frequently and he invites a journalist to join him on his adventures take his vice magazine post from yesterday boasting that they're with him though in the end they might be the suckers here shortly after this picture was posted internet hackers noticed something interesting the photo taken with an i phone still had all of the metadata tash including g.p.s. coordinates all those coordinates put mcafee right here in guatemala meaning he

fled billie's altogether despite mr action from mcafee who claimed he purposely posted incorrect metadata damage was done mcafee was arrested by guatemalan police last night for entering the country illegally and sent to jail where he continued to blog today guatemala denied mcafee is request for asylum shortly there after mcafee was hospitalized for convulsions he remains in guatemalan hospital. for now it's hard to make any generalizations about this strange case but one thing is for sure it is easier now more than ever to learn detailed information about people and their whereabouts so you might want to think twice before posting a quick if you're on the run and we are going to leave it off there but for more of the stories we covered head over to our used to page that youtube dot com slash r.t. america you can also check out our web site and that is our t.v. dot com slash usa and you can follow.